More than ever before,
learners of Japanese need effective tools designed to break through
the formidable barrier posed by the Japanese script.

This dictionary
aims to answer the urgent need for an easy-to-use kanji dictionary small
enough to be easily carried around yet detailed enough to satisfy the
practical needs of serious beginners and intermediate learners. Its
basic goal is to give you an in-depth understanding of how kanji are
used in contemporary Japanese. A totally new system gives you instant
access to a wealth of highly useful information, enabling you to quickly
locate the meanings, readings, and compound words for about 98% of the
most frequently used kanji.

The Kodansha Kanji
Learner's Dictionary is the latest addition to Kanji
Toolkit (KIT) -- a series of computer-edited dictionaries
and other useful learning aids for the effective mastery of the Japanese
script. The new dictionary is based on the first installment of the
series, the NTC/Kenkyusha New Japanese-English
Character Dictionary, which has already become established
in Japanese language education circles as a standard reference work,
and has enjoyed the praise and support of world-renowned scholars and
countless learners of Japanese all over the world.

A unique feature of Kanji Toolkit products is the core meaning -- a concise keyword that defines the
most dominant sense of each character, followed by psychologistically-ordered character meanings that clearly show how a few thousand
basic building blocks are combined to form countless compound words.
Another unique feature is an indexing system that enables the user to locate entries
with great speed and facility.

The one feature
that really distinguishes this dictionary -- that puts it in a class
of its own in the history of kanji dictionaries -- is that it was carefully
designed to strike a perfect balance between two fundamentally conflicting
needs: that of portability versus comprehensiveness. On the one hand,
it does provide the learner with immediate access to detailed information
on more than 98% of the characters used in contemporary Japanese; on
the other hand, it is compact and light enough to be easily carried
around in one's handbag or briefcase.

The principal features
that make this dictionary a highly practical learning aid are described
below.

The entries are
ordered according to a scheme called SKIP (System of Kanji Indexing by Patterns),
which makes it possible to look up entries almost as quickly as in alphabetical
dictionaries. Each character is unambiguously classified under one of
four easy-to-identify geometrical patterns 1. left-right, 2. up-down,
3. enclosure, and 4. solid-- and each pattern
is further subdivided into progressively smaller subgroups for easy
retrieval. Since the system can be learned quickly and does not require
prior knowledge of kanji, it is extremely convenient for beginners who
need to look up characters with great speed and little effort.

A striking feature
of this dictionary is the core meaning. This is a concise keyword that provides
an instant grasp of each character's fundamental concept and links its
principal senses into one conceptual unit. Since it functions as a concentrated
thoughtpackagethat appeals to the learner's powers of association,
it is widely praised by learners and educators as a highly effective
learning aid.

An outstanding feature
of this dictionary is that clear, complete, and accurate character meanings are grouped in clusters around the core
meaning in a way that allows them to be conceived as a logically-structured,
psychologically integrated unit (psychologistic ordering). The meanings are presented
in a manner that shows how each character is used as a word element,
and how countless compound words can be generated from a stock of a
few thousand building blocks.

The character meanings
are illustrated by many high-frequency compounds that provide maximally useful examples
of each sense. The compounds are not restricted to those in which the
entry character occurs in the initial position, and are arranged in
a manner that clearly shows how they are formed from their constituents.
This arrangement has the special advantage of enabling you to easily
infer the meanings of other compounds not found in the dictionary.

6.System
of Labels

A system of labels provides practical guidance on style,
function, and usage. The labels indicate such useful information as
the etymology, style, grammatical function, and level of formality,
and clearly distinguish independent words from word elements.

The entries of this
dictionary are ordered according to their SKIP numbers, which allows
even the complete beginner to look up characters with great speed. The
user has a choice of five lookup methods:

The Pattern Index
allows characters to be quickly located from their SKIP numbers.

The SCAN Method is a
powerful shortcut for locating some characters almost instantly.

The On-Kun Index
lists the characters alphabetically by both their on
and kun readings.

An important feature
of this dictionary is its compact size and visually attractive layout.
Although it is small enough to be easily portable, the type size is
large enough for relaxed browsing without eye strain. Cutting-edge DTP
technology was used to achieve a harmonious blend of a wide range of
type sizes and styles that make the organization of the entry self-explanatory.

This dictionary
presents a total of 2230 main entry characters, and approximately 41,100
meanings for some 31,000 words, word elements, and examples. This covers
more than 98% of the characters used in contemporary Japanese, especially
newspapers, and is more than adequate for meeting the needs of learners.

Our primary guideline
has been completeness in terms of quality rather than comprehensiveness
in terms of quantity -- that is, the dictionary focuses on contemporary
usage and the practical needs of the learner. It was designed to achieve
the optimal balance between the comprehensiveness of a desktop edition
and the portability of a pocket edition.